The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster: book review

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (2006) is an interconnected compilation of three of the author’s detective novels: City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986), and The Locked Room(1986). They are all set in New York.

In City of Glass, Daniel Quinn is a mystery writer who writes under the pseudonym William Wilson. In the middle of the night a man telephones him, a wrong number, seeking a private detective. Quinn becomes embroiled in a real crime. Peter Stillman thinks he is going to be murdered and wants protection. What he says may or may not be true. Then he goes missing. Quinn sees a man identical to Peter only to learn that there is Peter Stillman senior and Peter Stillman junior.

In Ghosts, set in mid-summer 1948, Mr White hires private detective Blue, a mentee of Brown, to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. But who is Mr Gold? Blue becomes a writer reporting to White.

In The Locked Room, Sophie Fanshawe and her son Ben are left on their own when Sophie’s husband disappears. All they have are his novels. Mr Fanshawe’s friend, an uncreative writer, publishes Fanshawe’s novels as his own and becomes part of the family.

Some of the connections between the three novels are the city, the narrative-style, detectives as the main source of truth-finding, writers penning various forms of expression, inter-textuality, coincidence, and lost or missing characters. The protagonist in each novel walks the streets of New York ‘unseen’ as if in a slipstream, witness to the events that unfold. Stories within stories, the writers are also readers.

Complex, complicated, connective threads reveal truths, lies, secrets, subterfuge, pseudonyms, twinships, double plots, and triple threats. All are fascinating novels in their own right, and when combined they become a triple delight.

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

Global Gentlemanliness

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog